About The Millen news. (Millen, Jenkins County, Ga.) 1903-current | View Entire Issue (Dec. 25, 2024)
Page 4 - Wednesday, December 25, 2024 The Millen News themillennews.com OPINIONS The Chatter Box DEBORAH BENNETT Editor No doubt most of us have watched “Rudolph the Red- Nosed Reindeer” at least several times during our life time. It is a yearly tradition for many of us. But, do you know the story behind the story? The story was written in 1939 by Bob May, a 34-year- old ad writer for Montgom ery Ward. It was created as a promotional gimmick for Montgomery Ward, which gave away coloring books each Christmas. The store wanted to save money by creating its own book. May was inspired to write the story by his own experiences as a shy child and being made fun of for be ing different. And, in the backdrop of this May’s wife was fighting cancer so he wanted to write something that would cheer up his young daughter. In its first year, Montgomery Ward distributed 2.4 million copies of the story, which was written in the same year as Twas the Night Before Christmas. In 1947, the chairman of Wards made an outright gift of the copyright for the story to May, who found a book publisher for it, and 100,000 copies were sold that same year. Four years later the book made him a millionaire. In 1949, May’s brother-in-law, songwriter Johnny Marks, adapted the story into a song and thought he had Perry Como lined up to record it, but Como wanted a line in the song changed. Marks refused to even change a comma. So, he approached country-western singer Gene Autry with the song. Autry thought it was too childish for his image. So, May had a demo made by another country singer and sent that to Autry, who liked what he heard and agreed to record the song with encouragement from his wife. It turned out to be the best decision he ever made. “Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer” surpassed any other song Autry recorded. The song went on to become the second best-selling Christmas song ever, behind “White Christmas”. Since then the story has come to life in TV specials, cartoons, movies, toys, games, coloring books, greeting cards, and even a Ringling Brothers Circus act. As the last line in the song says, “He’ll go down in history,” Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer has done just that! And now you know! Merry Christmas! 1 V Jitters to the Editor * v ■:t""* - b si if'*"/ We welcome your LETTER TO THE EDITOR Letters to the editor of The Millen News are welcomed and encouraged. These are pages of opinion, yours and ours. Letters to the editor voice the opinions of the newspa per’s readers. The Millen News reserves the right to edit any and all portions of a letter. Unsigned letters will not be published. Letters must include the signature, address and phone number of the writer to allow our staff to authenticate its origin. Letters should be limited to 400 words and should be typewritten and double-spaced or neatly printed by hand. Deadline for letters to the editor is noon on Fridays. Email Letters to the Editor to: millennewstoday@gmail.com Chartered 1903 The Millen News is published weekly by The Millen News 856 Cotton Ave. • Millen, Ga. 30442 Phone: (478) 982-5460 • FAX: (478) 982-1785 Periodical postage paid at Millen, Georgia. POSTMASTER: Send address changes to: 856 Cotton Ave. Suite A • Millen, Ga. 30442 Roy Chalker Publisher Lavomia Johnson General Manager Deborah Bennett.... Tara Sasser Lavomia Johnson/. Tres Bragg Editor Office Manager/Advertising Sales Layout and Design Sports Reporter Subscription Rates (Includes tax): 6 Months In Jenkins County $14.00 1 Year In Jenkins County. $26.00 2 Years In Jenkins County $46.00 Elsewhere in Georgia $33.00 Outside of Georgia $39.00 It’s the Christmases of my childhood that I remember always and cherish most. They were simple and humble with no fancy frills or garland. In the windows of the stores downtown, I often stood, long ingly, dreaming of a Christmas tree with expensive decorations and huge bows made of red velvet ribbon. And the angel on top? She was my heart’s desire rather than the ancient star that topped our tree. It helped none that trees were even more beautiful In the Christmas television spe cials in vivid color. Bob Hope. Andy Williams. Dean Martin. Bing Crosby. Oh, my. I wished Ronda Rich we had a fireplace on which to string greenery and hang a stun ning wreath. I didn’t realize it then but the truth is my parents did the best they could. Since I was born to them late in life, they were pretty much out of the holly jolly business from my siblings — yet they gave it their best try with the meager money left over after the monthly bills. Daddy tramped into the woods, chopped down a pine tree, and dragged it home tied behind that blue Ford tractor. He loved that tractor, the brain storm of Henry Ford, a farmer, who recognized the need for such a piece of machinery so he developed one. Had someone come along and offered Daddy a good deal for the tractor or me, I’d’ve been the one long gone. Later, someone gave us a used artificial tree. I danced happily until I realized that, CHRISTMAS 2024 though the limbs were perfect, not lopsided like farm trees and much easier to disassemble (cleaning up the pine needles was torture), there was no deli cious scent of pine. Mama pulled magnolia leaves from a tree in the front yard and, sometimes, if the weather had not been too harsh, tucked back among the limbs, she found a beautiful blossom. She broke off more pine limbs, then decorated the top of the piano with green holly and red berries from the bush next to the front porch. It was all homemade but quite pretty, I must admit. When I was about nine years old, I sidled up to Daddy, sitting at the kitchen table, finishing off his morning coffee, and put my arm around his neck. I said, “Daddy, I need some mistle toe.” He tried not to smile. “You do, do you? Well, how do you figure we get it?” Mama had recently explained to me about the birds and the holly berries. “They eat the berries,” Mama said, “Then, whenever they land on a limb and leave droppins, they leave the seed behind.” After that, I began to notice large bunches of mistletoe, hanging in abundance at the top of tall oak trees. The only problem was how to get 15 or 20 feet up to the mistletoe. I frowned, “I don’t know but I’m sure you can figure it out. I’m going to tie it with ribbon and hang it over the doors.” Daddy smiled, standing up from the table. “Hang on, little ‘un, let me get my boots and jacket. Go get yours, too” A few minutes later, I met him at the back door with his shotgun. I looked quizzical. “What’cha doin’ with that?” SEE RICH, 5 Wade Peebles Back then, before rural elec trification, those without an icebox had to keep foods safe to eat by using common sense and folk tradition. They had a lot more of that back then than they do now because they had to survive. One point I want to make is hardly taken into consideration when discussing that era and its ways. For much of the year in the cold weather, simple and natural conditions helped to maintain much of the food waiting to be cooked and eaten. It also kept cooked foods fresh longer so they did not have to be thrown out. By the way, food, cooked or uncooked, that did spoil was not wasted. It went to hogs, hounds, and chickens. So, in cold weather, housewives could depend on natural refrig eration most of the time as we do today with our freezers and refrigerators. Cooking and keeping food in the Georgia heat was a “mule of a different color.” In warm weather, cooking changed for obvious reasons and the things that were cooked shifted with the seasons. Hot weather was not a time to make large amounts of food. It was best to cook the amounts that would be eaten the BACK THEN WITH WADE same day. It was common to cook larger amounts of vegetables and other side dishes at dinner. (Yes, when I say dinner, I am referring to the noon meal.) So they could be eaten at supper, often with a different meat, which made it seem less like leftovers and more like a new meal. Foods grown on the farm in large amounts had to be kept viable in one of several ways. That was why families then had the skills and knowledge to “put up” and preserve wild plums, tigs, berries, fruits, grapes, whole or as preserves, jams, and jellies. They banked root crops such as turnip roots, rutabagas, sweet potatoes, Irish potatoes, onions, or vegetables like cabbages. Pork was smoked or cured, and would keep. Cooks used a lot of flour, commeal, rice, grits, and hominy. Honey will not spoil, so it was at hand for sweeten ing, and cane syrup was eaten almost daily. You may be thinking that I forgot about the most important piece of furniture in the house back then, the pie safe, but no, I saved it for last. A pie safe was for much more than pies. It held leftovers as well as the “grab foods” from that era that made up the snacks. If a family member needed to take some nourishing food to eat later, for school, a job, when hunting or fishing, or doing farm work, the rccoLca, pie safe was for 5 Don Lively CHRISTMAS THEN, CHRISTMAS NOW So this is Christmas. I hope you have fun. The near and the dear one. The old and the young. John Lennon sang those words so long ago that “the young” he referred to are now “the old”. And “the old” he referred to are now most likely departed. The actual title of the song, recorded the same year that your humble scribbler gradu ated from high school, was “Happy Xmas, War Is Over”. It’s a weird title but my late brother Urb, a huge Beatles fan, loved it and once told me it was his favorite Christmas song. The song became a tradition for him during the Holidays. Traditions. Isn’t that a large part of how we celebrate Christmas all over the Blessed South? Don’t we all reminisce this time of year about the Christ mases of the past? I never particularly liked apple cider but Daddy did and the smell of it these days takes me back across the decades to that old clapboard house with the drafty doors and windows, Christmas morning huddled around the old potbellied stove waiting for Mama’s cue to dive into the pile of presents under the tree. The scent of cedar was always in the air, Daddy having taken us to the woods to find a Christmas tree. He would cut down the tree and would also bring back several other cedar branches that he would use to fill out the tree’s bare spots, all of it stuffed into a five-gallon bucket Mama had pre-wrapped in red paper. We never had the decorative and colorful Christmas stock ings that nearly every home has these days but we made do. Mama would use what we used to call “boot socks” as our stockings. She would hang them on the mantelpiece filled with tangerines and Brazil nuts and hard candy. None of them had our names on them but it didn’t matter because Mama al ways made sure that every sock had exactly the same contents. Another treasured tradition was the “Christmas Tree” ser vice at the church. Every year the pastor would relate the story of Mary and Joseph and the Baby Jesus laying in the manger. We would sing a few Christmas carols and there would be a Christmas play that featured kids playing all of the parts. But the highlight of the night for most of us was having our name called and walking up to the tree to get our present. Every kid, whether they were regulars or whether they only came at Christmas, was given a gift by the church. On Christmas Day, after we had SEE opened our presents, lively we would join sev- ’ eral other branches ^
